Analog Love

To my elders,

"

Quick kid quick, so harsh and cynical

Touches stricken, cold and clinical

What a transformation to behold

But I don't like this new, I want the old..."

That is the opening verse to the song Happier by A Fine Frenzy.

Now, I realize that the last line there is about a person, but I am taking it to refer to life. Well, no life exactly, but how fast things change, and how much of a complete turnover has taken place over the past 10 to 15 years. When I was in high school, we passed notes in class. Because text messaging didn't exist yet. Not that we had cell phones anyway. I once told this story to an 18 year old who responded with "How old ARE you?!"

In High School, I took photography class. Film photography class. I developed my own black and white film and printed it. I even wound my own rolls of film in "the baby" (which is what our teacher called the roller. It has a picture of a baby on it. Because it was to be treated like one. Gently). It wasn't perfect and there was a lot of trial and error (especially since my light meter didn't work) and it took a long time to get a handful of good photos. You had to go with it and hope that the Dark Room Gods would smile on you and not ruin all your film. That some of the super cool photos you took would actually turn out. You couldn't just click something and check a screen. Editting involved waving your fingers between the enlarger lens and the photo paper while exposing. No two prints looked alike. It was creating art just to print a snapshot. And it isn't perfect. Far from it. Farthest from it, possibly. But analog just has so much... life in it. It is so human. I has feeling and emotion. It isn't just bits and bites and 0s and 1s (parsel tongue sudoku!!!). Its light and colour and reflection and shading and grey scale and foibles. It is dust marks and scratches and all those things that make you take note of how much time and energy and effort went into making it. Digital is too perfect.

I am not a luddite. I got a walkman in 6th grade that was waterproof, just in case. I got a discman in 10th grade when they were actually good enough to bother spending the money. I've had an iPod for 6 years. And by "an" I mean 2. I still have the first one, the buttons just don't work anymore. It is a Mini, after all. But I also have a record player and a collection ranging from jazz and swing that I inherited from my grandfather to the classic rock albums I stole from my dad's collection, the used original Ziggy Stardust I bought for 9£ in Edinburgh (which has such a huge wobble you can hear it as the record plays), to new prints of The Shins and a ridiculous collection of Less Than Jake 7" singles. Some with matching images printed into the records. My collection started with a 1$ copy of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" by Simon and Garfunkel that E and I picked up at a Value Village and has grown, mostly through used record stores, however used records stores everywhere I have ever been. I have records from quite a few of the places I have been to, and let me tell you, flying home with vinyl is not that fun. I get really worried its going to break because no one remembers what vinyl is or that it is housed in cardboard.

What really got me onto the Analog Love thing though, was Polaroid cameras. But more on that another time. For now, what you need to know is that The Impossible Project is completely awesome, Polaroids are beautiful, and that seeing the beauty in the world, in simple, mundane, regular, everday things, is worthwhile.

I don't like the new, I want the old.

-K